Interior repairs in cooperative or condominium apartments aren’t as cut and dry as in a rental property. Unlike a rental, where most repairs would fall onto the landlord, there is a clear delineation of responsibilities for a shareholder / unit owner and the building.

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Proprietary Lease expiration dates are often overlooked until the expiration date is creeping towards 30-years from the present time. Banks like to know that the loans they are giving out to Shareholders (and to the Cooperative as a whole) are not going to be deemed worthless by an expiring Proprietary Lease that would effectively cancel their collateral.

Updating and extending the Proprietary Lease expiration date is a painless exercise, but one that requires some planning. A special meeting of Shareholders or an Annual Meeting can satisfy the vote to extend, but it has to be noted on the agenda when either notice of meeting is sent and usually, a supermajority of Shareholders are required to approve the change since this is changing the core building documents. Extending it as far as 75 years from the present date will allow a Board to have quite a bit of breathing room and a long time to go until those banks pop up their heads again.

Should your Proprietary Lease be close to expiring (in the banks’ eyes, any way) they may ask for a letter from the Board or from the Managing Agent to place in writing that the Corporation intends to extend the Proprietary Lease as soon as possible.